Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Adventures with an E Reader



I am afraid of small electrical devices. I am!! My cell phone is 4 years old and I don't know if it has texting capabilities. It doesn't matter - I don't plan on texting. I have a couple of devices to plug an IPod into. But they shall remain podless as I fear IPods. So as little as six months ago, I made a promise to myself I would never be an e-reader. But never make promises to yourself as you are likely to break them.

I mentioned in previous posts that I decided on, ordered and picked up a Kobo. I picked it up last Friday. On Sunday I overcame my fear enough to take it out of the box. And the next big step was last night when I decided to give 'er a go and get it up and running. Surprisingly, it was pretty easy. So them came the next test; ordering a book from Chapters.

I don't know what I did, or how I did it, but IT WORKED! With tons of books to choose from, I decided to go with Haunting Beauty by Erin Quinn. I had just started reading Haunting Warrior, the second book in the series. I soon realized it might be best to read the first book before going any further and voila, my first ereader book ever was chosen.

With that success behind me, I decided to go another step further and order books from an epublisher since the reason I went with a Kobo was to have the ability to order outside the box books that aren't always as easy to find with the NY publishers. I checked out a couple of sites and ended up at Liquid Silver where I downloaded a couple of books.

I went with A Hearing Heart by Bonnie Dee. I've read a few of her books and really enjoyed them and this one sounded intriguing. I read a review for it somewhere - can't remember where now - and the price was right. And it's a Western!!

Oh! Oh! I remember now. Aztec Lady did a review for this one on Karen's blog. Or then again, maybe it was Jayne's review at DA.



And for my third choice, Containment by Lucinda Thorne. It's a SciFi/Futuristic and I'm all over them and the story sounds interesting. I shiver at the thought of all the SciFi/Futuristics they have with E Publishers.

However, this is where I ran into a "glitch". I downloaded them in PDF format to my laptop, plugged in the Kobo and then was stuck. I had heard that it's a simple matter of dragging and dropping. The dragging part was easy, but the dropping - not so much. I couldn't figure out where to drop!! I have Kobo files but it wouldn't let me drop and I'm not sure whether the Kobo files were on the Kobo itself or on the part that was loaded on the computer when I set it up. Where ever it was, it wasn't on the Kobo. Nath is the only one I know with a Kobo and after a flurry of emails back and forth, we were both confused. And by that time, my brain had just about shut down for the night for thinking and concentrating. I know it's probably a simple matter, and once I get it figured out, the world of ebooks will be my oyster. But for the moment, I'm stymied.

Now for using it for reading. I like it!! I really like it! I'm anal about keeping my books in good shape and if a book has words going to the real inside of a book, it can drive me nuts trying to read it without doing some kind of spine bending. I really like that you can read it one handed or no handed; prop it against something and all you need is a finger to hit the next page button. And another feature I didn't realize it had until I started reading was when you turn it off and then back on, it automatically goes to where you left off reading. Kewl.

So so far, so almost good

15 comments:

orannia said...

I'm so glad that you find it easy to read on Kristie, and fingers crossed with the dragging and dropping. Kobo has just (last week) arrived here (NZ) - up until last week we only have the iPhone or iTouch option. I like my iPhone, but the drag and drop doesn't work very well and as for formats....GRRR! Let's just say if it wasn't for my lovely friend Kerry I wouldn't have been able to work out how to convert a PDF to ePub nor how to set up my iPhone to find Calibre on my computer. But...I love reading eBooks now. So much easier that reading on a computer.

All the best with your eReading :)

Hilcia said...

Congratulations Kristie! I also prefer print, but... I am having a love affair with my eReader (I feel nekkid without it). I hope you and Nath can figure out how to drop pdf files on the your Kobo documents file soon. I hope there should be a place where you can all go for instructions.

Enjoy! Oh and I hope you don't go crazy nuts buying books the way I did when I got mine, lol! I blew my book budget and didn't care. :D

Hilcia said...

Oh lord!! Sorry about all the mistakes above... I'm watching a baseball game and posting at the same time... so sorry. :(

RRRJessica said...

oh, how I remember how momentous an occasion it was to choose my first few Kindle reads. So exciting!!! I am so glad you took the plunge and are enjoying it.

But a word of warning: you know how easy it is to get a paper TBR pile going? It is infinitely easier to get that digital TBR going. Somehow I have 100 books on my Kindle. Gremlins clearly stole it while I was alseep. Who knew gremlins were so into romance?

Kaetrin said...

Will the Kobo reader work with Calibre? If so, that might solve your problem. You load the book into Calibre and load the book onto the reader using the button "send to device". I use Calibre for my Sony and I mainly buy epub or pdf books. I'm not 100% certain but it seems logical to me that the Kobo would work with Calibre too.
Also the mobileread forums are great to pick up advice even for technophobes and the guy who made Calibre regularly visits and answers queries etc.
I'm not sure if that will help you but I guess it's worth checking out.
Hope you enjoy your new reader Kristie!!

Lori said...

It gets crazy when you realize that your TBR pile exists on bookshelves real and virtual.

But ereaders rock! Glad you're on board.

Katie Reus said...

Yay! Welcome to the world of ereading :) I love my Sony and take that baby everywhere! Someone mentioned calibre above and I use that to convert my ebooks too...might work w/ your reader.

azteclady said...

Kristie J, I love you to pieces--and I'm with RRRJessica, watch out for the exploding virtual TRB pile!

nath said...

So, how is it going Kristie? I'll try to do a video this week-end if you still haven't figured it out :)

~ames~ said...

Hey Kristie, I'm glad you're enjoying your new e-reader. :P Hope you get that pdf thing figured out.

SarahT said...

Congratulations, Kristie! I'm a fellow ereader newbie. I got mine three weeks ago and I'm hooked.

Have you signed up for NetGalley yet? I did so soon after getting my BeBook. I just got a digital galley of Judith James' 'The Libertine's Kiss' and it looks great!

Li said...

The Kobo looks fantastic - I hope you figure out the drop/drag thing soon.

I think the instant gratification aspect is the best part (and possibly the most dangerous too!).

Kaetrin said...

@ SarahT I'm so jealous! I've signed up to NetGalley but just about every book I've requested has been "declined by publisher". I can't work out if this is because I'm in Australia and it's geographical restrictions getting me or what. grrr.

Statch said...

I love Calibre (with my Sony reader and Touch) so I checked, and it does work with Kobo! I highly recommend it for organizing your library and getting books on to the reader. It's free; here's a link to it:

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Erotic Horizon said...

Welcome to the world of e-readers, I am so jealous of that new gadget feel that you get when you get a new piece of kit..

It sounds like you are enjoying it so far... Happy reading with your new toy...

E.H>